FC DAO – giving the beautiful game back to the fans
Empower: Provide greater fan support through ownership, governance, and collective action
Inspire: Show how people can unite for a common goal and use DAOs as a force for good
Adopt: Create a user-friendly and relevant way to onboard over 3B people to crypto
### Name of Project / DAO / Company
FC DAO
### Application Type
DAO Formation
### Proposal Overview
Football (or soccer) is the largest sport in the world [1] and is currently undergoing an existential crisis perpetuated and centralized by those at the highest levels of management and organization. The increasing number of clubs controlled by oligarchs [2] and a recent highly-publicized attempt to form a breakaway league despite fan protests [3], coupled with rising ticket prices across all leagues [4] and the impact of COVID-19 [5] have put the sport in a financial crisis. Because of these pressures, many historically-important clubs have had to dissolve or enter administration/bankruptcy (Leeds United, Portsmouth, Derby County just this week), often to be resurrected by fans, and some of the most prominent names in global football are currently at risk of a similar fate (Barcelona, Juventus, Real Madrid).
Old-world ways of thinking, outdated structures of management, and deeply corrupted institutions have contributed to a non-representative race to the bottom for centralized financial benefit and have betrayed and misrepresented hundreds of thousands of distinct communities around the world, including the billions of fans that make up those communities.
Football has always been a grassroots game, but the recent overcommercilization of the sport has increased the distance between fans and their favorite clubs; clubs which, at many times in history, have served as irreplaceable cultural institutions. These fans are forced to pay more than ever for a seat at a game while never being offered a seat at the table. Fans are happy to lend their voice to support their favorite team, but we believe it’s time that voice mattered in more meaningful and representative ways.
We believe DAOs will revolutionize the football industry to make it more equitable, accessible, representative, healthy and profitable— for all, not just the few.
Many teams take advantage of their fanbase for marketing purposes, but fail to support or contribute to that community in a meaningful way. The fans and their passion for the team are often taken advantage of and objectified by selfish profit-seeking owners. These fans are almost always left with minimal access, if any, on matters that materially affect them and their community.
There have been multiple attempts in recent years to bring fans back to the forefront such as OWNAFC, but these attempts have been misguided at best and malevolent at worst and their success at capturing the public imagination and fundraising, along with the success stories of self-organizing fan groups such as FC United of Manchester & Clapton FC, illustrate the market demand for a way for fans to be involved with their teams in a substantive and genuine way.
Organizations that currently help fans gain control of their clubs are rare and often inaccessible due to restrictive costs and barriers. Our DAO will help fill this void to create an innovative, transparent, affordable, and effective model for fans of clubs large and small to support their teams in a new way.
We believe FC DAO will capture the imagination of a widely-shared sentiment and provide a fair and honest means for football fans to engage in more impactful and lasting actions for their community, their clubs, and their future.
One way we can act upon this goal is to craft DAOs for individual teams with tokens that may be used in a number of ways. Some examples include:
- Fans may purchase to raise funds to acquire the team from current ownership and assert their voice in how their club operates
- Fan-owned clubs can restructure their organizational and management efforts into a DAO with voting and proposal mechanisms
- Fans may raise funds through token and NFT sales to improve the club’s financial status
- Fans, often unpaid volunteers at community-owned clubs in current structures, may earn real income through tips or other mechanics by committing their time to tasks and jobs
With an emphasis on fundraising-for-club-purchase via a club-DAO token, another liquidity mechanism we would explore is creating tokens for individual players. Not only would this mechanic help us raise funds (and potentially give both us and the club the valuation metrics for individual players), but it will begin creating transparency in an industry that is in desperate need of reform.
NFTs for both players and the club will be a natural development for any club and/or player involved with a club DAO. NFTs and player tokens, along with our philosophy, will naturally migrate to other clubs and leagues as word spreads between fans and as players are moved from club to club. This will result in organic marketing for both club and player tokens and create more opportunities for the usage of club DAOs.
We will initiate the model by identifying 24 smaller, lower-level clubs in European-based leagues that are available for purchase or adoption and work with 1-2 of these clubs to create a prototype of the DAO model, build the technology, and prove our use-case for expansive growth. From smart contracts and NFTs to DeFi and decentralization, crypto-industry innovations will serve as building blocks for development and improvement of an outdated industry.
Alongside a technical team, we will build a dApp with a user-friendly Web2/mobile app interface connected to a custom wallet, built on Harmony, so that token storage and governance can occur on the same platform. As we will be working with people in all corners of the world, an elegantly simple and streamlined mobile user experience is critical to success.
We believe a simple approach to technology, implementation, and communication will increase chances of success by putting the focus on the passion of the fans and the vision of our DAO.
Where there is passion, there is opportunity. There are hundreds of thousands of football clubs in every corner of the world and myriad ways that our vision of DAOs in football will deliver more equitable, engaged, and profitable access to the teams that fans devote their lives to.
In recent years, fans have been flocking away from the biggest and most successful clubs in order to reconnect and rediscover a sense of belonging and control. We’ve seen this happen many times in England already with fans of Manchester United migrating to FC United of Manchester [6] and similar situations at Clapton CFC [7], AFC Wimbledon [8], and Dulwich Hamlet [9]. This trend is a clear statement from fans that their overriding interest lies in involvement with their club and not just success on the field.
We will look to explore clubs based in “crypto-friendly” countries that have ownership interested in selling part or all of their stake, and who have enough fans available for a liquidity raise in order to reasonably accommodate a purchase or acquisition by a DAO. For example, the two countries of Cyprus and Malta have a total of 170 clubs [10] and are considered “crypto-friendly” countries due to their laws and favorable view of the industry. [11]
We will also look at working with clubs that are based in countries with favorable startup ecosystems such as Estonia, along with countries where the football industry is rife with corruption and destructive business practices. Our model could also look to engage in the lower divisions of the English football pyramid to provide a high ceiling for competition and marketability. The transparency and fan representation of a DAO will help fans regain control of their club from unethical owners.
Such a model will pave the way for a new era of fan-focused football; with DAO structures that can be replicated at the hundreds of professional and semi-professional leagues and thousands of organized soccer clubs across the world [12] — and later, even, serve as a blueprint for other sports to implement. We will eventually look to extend our vision of DAOs in football into industry-wide innovations and reform across areas such as transfers, payments, contracts, statistics, rule governance, fan data, gamification and more.
To sum up our current vision in three high-level statements, here are our goals:
- EMPOWER: Change the game by giving fans a way to own a genuine stake in their favorite clubs and participate in key decisions. From playing a role in player acquisition and infrastructure improvements, to owning the club and asserting control through voting, we are bringing the beautiful game back to its roots - the grassroots.
- INSPIRE: Create a pilot that will continue to encourage fan ownership of clubs. We will illustrate how DAOs can be an institutional force for fans to take back control and become the new status quo for club ownership.
- ADOPT: Develop more transparent practices in the industry and new ways of thinking through the integration of DAOs into the sport, starting with the grassroots level and working our way up while creating a user-friendly and highly relevant way to onboard over 3B people to blockchain and crypto innovations.
We believe our current team is uniquely equipped and capable of meeting the strategic and communications challenge due to the following factors:
- We are currently members and fans of pioneering community-owned clubs
- We have embedded in-house experience with Leicester City and Liverpool FC— both Premier League Champions
- We have partnered and worked in-house with global brands such as ABInBev, Adidas, Activision Blizzard, Bleacher Report, Chelsea FC, FaZe Clan, Nike, Major League Soccer, Manchester City FC, New York Cosmos, LA Galaxy, Riot Games, SoFi, Venezia FC, YouTube, and many more
- We have developed creative and driven event executions for globally-significant companies in the sport, including adidas and Avery Dennison
- We have built a movement and community based on inclusion that reached millions of people and has grown into a mainstream event
- We have turned ideas into household names in the sports industry
Our Team Members
- Zack Goldman
- Founded Tiger 11 Sports and Entertainment, a sports agency representing players, clubs, and leagues across global football, with a focus on the transfer marketplace, contract negotiations, and intermediation.
- Led and structured player acquisition deals and contracts with clubs in the top divisions of British, German, Mexican, and Brazilian football, among others.
- Served as an international media and marketing consultant for Liverpool Football Club, the Right to Play Foundation, and the J.League and WE League (Japan’s men’s and women’s professional soccer leagues).
- Co-founded Common Goal (with Nathen), a creative agency that has delivered campaigns for the likes of adidas, Nike, Chelsea Football Club, and many other giants of global sport.
- Produced two seasons of original television and web content for the NFL’s family of media properties, including NFL.com, NFL Network, and the league’s worldwide broadcast outlets and sponsors.
- Regularly in touch with European football club owners and investment groups about club acquisition opportunities throughout the continent.
- Nathan Phillips
- Built Women’s Golf Day from a concept into a global event with 1,000+ locations across 60+ countries
- Business development at a DAO with defi protocol for undercollateralized business loans. Successfully organized a B2B barter network in Asheville NC with 200+ SMBs and extended over $600k in credit.
- Founded and ran marketing agency focused on e-commerce, CPG, and retail
- Created a CPG product line with 25+ SKUs and ran operations for e-commerce and distribution to over 200 retail locations
- Launched chain of alternative health retail stores, opening 6 profitable locations in under a year with a highly-profitable e-commerce division
- USSF F Coaching Certification
- Started two Official Supporters Groups for Arsenal FC
- Nathen McVittie
- Co-founded two creative studios— Common Goal (soccer) and Theorycraft (gaming and esports, acquired) with many prestigious clients
- Co-Founded ‘Where Is Football’, a globally-renowned and cult-favorite storytelling platform focused on soccer culture alongside Zack Goldman that currently boasts a combined audience of half-a-million people
- Responsible for the most-shared soccer content of all time during Leicester City’s 2015/16 Premier League victory
- Art directed Bleacher Report’s UK Snapchat channel to millions of daily unique viewers
- Consulted with global football teams on creative direction, fan culture and community efforts
- Crafted go-to-market creative strategy for American sports teams and businesses not endemic to soccer or gaming
### Proposal Ask
Based on one year of operations, we are seeking 1M to cover personnel costs with a heavy emphasis on development, outreach, marketing, and project implementation. More information here.
### Metrics for Success
- Identifying 24 high-value targets with the right conditions for DAO implementation within the first two months
- Research & scope larger blockchain-based innovation opportunities across the football industry within the first three months
- Initiate discovery sessions with a minimum of 10 clubs for new DAO projects within three months
- Launch 1-2 club DAO projects within the first 12 months
- Onboard thousands of users through sales of our token & NFTs along with sales of club tokens & NFTs
### References
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/soccer-is-the-world-s-most-popular-sport-and-still-growing
- https://www.football-stadiums.co.uk/articles/foreign-ownership-of-football-clubs/
- https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/european-super-league-updates-live-cmd-spt/h_c5cd46ca621f289920a8079fbe0bc025
- https://thefsa.org.uk/our-work/ticket-prices/
- https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/covid-euro-2020-how-the-pandemic-has-changed-football/
- http://www.fc-utd.co.uk/history#intro
- https://www.thecanary.co/video/2021/06/29/clapton-community-fc-another-club-is-possible/
- https://www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/club/history/
- https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/oct/26/dulwich-hamlet-fc-champion-hill-improbable-tale-tiny-football-club-that-lost-its-home-to-developers-and-won-it-back
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XC1TMFtWgUQXSrB4eH1nPO4q-yWUjUOXIWgeK1sT3HA/edit?usp=sharing
- https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/7-most-crypto-friendly-countries-for-bitcoin-investors-2021-06-30
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Football/Fully_professional_leagues